Lake St. Clair Fishing 'Legend' Honored

Outdoors

Lake St. Clair fishing 'legend' honored

Homer LeBlanc named to Hall of Fame

ST. CLAIR SHORES

Homer LeBlanc, who this year observes 50 years as a professional fishing guide on Lake St. Clair, has been elected to the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.

"The award affirms the fact that you earned the status of 'legend' in the fishing fraternity," hall director Bob Kutz wrote in the letter announcing LeBlanc's selection.

LeBlanc, 84, the acknowledged mentor of most of the lake's muskie fishermen, is to be inducted into the Hayward, Wise, hall in August, but said he will likely not attend.

"August 3 is the day I celebrate both my eighty-fifth birthday and my fiftieth Butch Sapp

wedding anniversary," LeBlanc said. "I guess I'll stay right here for that."

LeBlanc is one of 10 persons elected to the Hall of Fame this year. He is the only inductee ever from Michigan. Others selected for 1986 are fly-fishing educator Joan "Salvato Wulff, Maine outdoor writer Gene LeTourneau, author Alfred (Sparse Grey Hackle) Miller, manufacturer Tom Mann, TV host Bill Dance, television angler Al Lindner, Texas' great Floyd Mabry, bass tourney pro and TV fisherman Roland Martin, and the St. Lawrence River world record muskie holding team of Len and Betty Hartman.

"Len and Betty went out of their way one time to stop by and buy some of my lures," LeBlanc said. "They were in Jackson for some kind of seminar and said they couldn't go back to New York without some of Homer LeBlanc's muskie lures."

LeBlanc invented the popular Swimm Whizz plug and Swimm Zag spoon, now manufactured by Best Tackle in Northport; and has tinkered with lure designs for a couple of generations.

"Never throw anything away," he admonished. "Make a lure out of it."

He maintains a collection of historic lures, many of which he developed, as well as collectible rods, reels and angling accessories. In his basement "muskie museum" are mounts, trophies, and photos which trace the history of muskellunge fishing in southeast Michigan, much of which he made.

A bit of an artist, he also created a now out-of-print fishing map of Lake St. Clair and is the author of the book "Muskie Fishing - Fact and Fancy, Lore and Lures," now in its second edition. ($3.95 per copy from 23323 Liberty, 8t. Clair Shores 48080.)

"When trolling a lure," LeBlanc wrote, "always imagine a big muskie is following it. If he is, he is cautiously looking it over and it's his pigeon any time he wants to grab it. It can't ever get away. A muskie moves fast as lightning when he wants to grab something.”

The book and LeBlanc's numerous seminars each year at shows and tackle stores have taught thousands of anglers how to catch Lake St. Clair's most elusive trophy fish.

Perhaps LeBlanc's most significant contribution to the sport, however, is the trolling system he devised in the 1930s which is used by most Lake St. Clair muskie anglers today. LeBlanc preached that lures

run close to the boat and at high speed caught more fish here than other methods.

His principle employed six or eight rods - two downrods set amidships with heavier weights taking the line straight down so that the lures work almost beneath the transom, two more rods worked five to seven feet deep beneath the prop wash, two longer rods set outside with lighter end weights to work farther behind the boat and, if possible, one on each corner of the transom working mid ranges behind the boat. He recommends a trolling speed of four-and-a- half to five miles per hour.

Variations on LeBlanc's system are used by virtually all successful Lake St. Clair muskie trollers and LeBlanc himself will still go fishing with a skipper, for a fee, to show him how to set up his boat for the lake's big trophies.

Though muskies have been his career specialty, LeBlanc is also an accomplished bass and walleye angler and has more recently enjoyed Great Lakes salmon fishing. Lake Huron charter skippers have found out that LeBlanc's Swimm Whizz plug, in appropriate sizes and colors, are very effective on fall run chinooks.

Once a prizefighter and for a brief time in the dry-cleaning business, LeBlanc was born in Stoney Pointe, Ontario. He said he has fished since age four, has caught muskies for more than 60 years, and this year marks 50 years in which fishing has been his only profession.

But his favorite story, he said, happened only a couple of years ago when a crew from a local television station was doing a series on local angling opportunities.

"We took 10 muskies that day," LeBlanc said, "keeping only two for pictures and letting the rest go. We ended up with John Gross (of Channel 7) holding up a 17- and 18-pounder for the camera. He told me that day, and that shot, made his whole series."

The father of two daughters, LeBlanc and his wife, Alma, still live on a canal only a few yards from Lake St. Clair. Though he no longer operates his own charter boat, he remains a spry hand on deck, fishing almost as often as ever in the summer and speaking and writing in the off season.

Each talk he presents, each piece he writes, and virtually every conversation ends with LeBlanc's trademark phrase: "Fish hard! And think like a muskie!”